


Secret Identity

by doctorhelena



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Humor, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Steggy Week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 03:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19821910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorhelena/pseuds/doctorhelena
Summary: Peggy’s friends have some misgivings about the mysterious new man in her life.





	Secret Identity

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Day 1 of Steggy Week 2019 (Endgame). In this story, we’re going with the “Steve was always Peggy’s husband” theory.

“Look,” Peggy said, standing in her bedroom that first morning. “The simplest way is nearly always the best. You clearly can’t be Steve Rogers. Everyone knows he was lost in the war. All you have to do is shrug and agree that yes, you do look uncannily like him.”

Steve shook his head. “There’s no way that’ll really work. Not for people who actually know me. I can’t risk - ”

“Darling, which of us is the trained spy?” Peggy opened the top drawer to retrieve her stockings. “You’d be surprised how little it takes to fool people, when the alternate explanation is even less believable.” 

He still looked skeptical. “Like Clark Kent and Superman?”

“Yes, I suppose so.” She straightened. “Here, let me see if I can find you a pair of glasses.” She went to the cupboard and rummaged through Howard’s collection of costumes, the provenance of which was best not considered too closely. She’d left them there, shoved into a back corner, because after all one never knew when they might come in handy in her line of work. 

“At any rate,” she said, emerging triumphantly with a pair of dark-rimmed spectacles that looked like they might fit him, “you’ll have to meet my roommate at some point. And there’s no time like the present.” She held them out and he took them and slid them on. She examined him critically. “Yes, I think those will do.”

“You like them?” he asked, and gave her a stern look over the rims that somehow led to the two of them getting rather breathtakingly sidetracked. 

\-----

Peggy strode into the kitchen, after repairing considerable damage to her carefully-put-together appearance, and put on the kettle. “Morning, Angie. Are you decent?”

Angie looked up, her mouth full of toast. “Why, you got a man over?” Her eyes widened as Peggy smiled, slowly and unmistakably. The only possible course of action here was to brazen their way through, and Angie, in the end, would be far from their toughest audience.

“Huh,” said Angie, blinking. “So you - okay.” She took another bite of toast, chewed and swallowed. “Huh,” she said again, clearly rattled. 

Peggy felt the corners of her mouth creeping upwards a little again. “Do you mind if he stays for breakfast? He’d like to meet you.”

Angie was still blinking. “Did - did you seriously pretend to go to work at your top secret spy job last night as a - as a  _ cover _ for - ” she gestured.

Peggy’s lips twitched. “Even the great Houdini didn’t make it above the first floor, you mean?”

“Kind of,” said Angie, looking a little hurt. “You could have told me, English.”

Peggy sat down across from her. “Angie, I - no, I really did get a mysterious telephone call that seemed at the time to be related to my work. It just - it’s complicated.”

“Always is with you, English.”

Peggy sighed. “The whole thing was quite cloak and dagger, for very good reasons that I can’t share with you because they’re highly classified. But I promise you, when I left the house last night I had no idea this was going to happen. I just - ”

“That handsome, huh?” asked Angie, her eyebrows raised.

“I don’t know about that,” said Steve, standing in the doorway. He held out his hand. “Hi. I’m Grant.”

Angie was staring at him, her mouth open. “English, can I talk to you for a sec? Privately?”

Peggy had a feeling she knew where this was going, and she wasn’t wrong. “He looks just like Captain America!” hissed Angie, once they’d retreated to the dining room, leaving Steve making tea in the kitchen.

Peggy shrugged. “I suppose there’s some resemblance. He’s a little older. The nose isn’t quite the same.”

Angie’s eyes were wide. “Where did you find him?”

“I can’t tell you,” said Peggy. “I’m sorry, Angie, I would if I could.”

Angie sighed. “Look, Peg. I know you two were in love. And I also know you’re not over him, despite what you’ve been trying to tell yourself. You still keep that old picture of him right on your bedside table.”

“I do,” said Peggy, “but - ”

Angie put both of her hands on Peggy’s shoulders and gently squeezed. “Peggy, it can’t be healthy to hop right into bed with the first guy you find who looks like him. Can’t be fair to this Grant guy, either.” 

Peggy blinked. “I - ”

Angie raised her eyebrows.

“Well,” said Peggy, rallying, “Perhaps we can discuss this later, when he isn’t waiting in the kitchen.”

“Fair, enough,” said Angie. “I’ll make pancakes. You two probably worked up quite an appetite.”

\-----

“I hear there’s a new man in your life,” said Mr. Jarvis carefully, several days later.

Peggy sighed. He’d waited until she was trapped in the car with him, en route from a meeting at Howard’s that he’d insisted on driving her home from for reasons she now understood. “You’ve been talking to Angie.”

“Miss Martinelli is concerned. She wondered if I might - ”

Peggy sighed. “I assure you, Mr. Jarvis, I am not using Grant as a thinly-veiled substitute for Steve. I would hope you would give me a little credit.”

Jarvis pursed his lips, his eyes on the road. “That is indeed one of Miss Martinelli’s concerns. The other, which I must confess I share, is the mysterious circumstances under which you met him.”

Peggy eyed him. “And she thinks I might tell you more than I’ve told her?”

“I believe so.”

“Well, I’m afraid I can’t,” said Peggy. “I met Grant under circumstances I’m not at liberty to divulge. But I assure you, he’s absolutely trustworthy.”

This didn’t appear to reassure Jarvis. “Are you - ” he sighed. “Are you quite certain?”

“Yes,” she said, simply.

“Miss Carter,” he said, “Far be it from me to judge - heaven knows Mr. Stark has jumped into liaisons with far less provocation, and I do not intend to hold you to a double standard. But - remember Ida Emke.”

Peggy blinked. “You think Grant is a foreign agent? Like Dottie Underwood?”

“It isn’t out of the realm of possibility,” he said, a little defensively. “And forgive me, Miss Carter, but Miss Martinelli mentioned that he greatly resembles Captain Rogers. I’m afraid your connection to the Captain is well-known enough to - ”

“The resemblance is superficial at best,” said Peggy, her eyes narrowing dangerously. “Am I supposed to avoid all blonde, blue-eyed men because they look too much like Steve?”

“Of course not,” said Jarvis. “I just - ” He took a breath, and visibly changed course from whatever it was he’d been about to say. “I have the utmost confidence in your judgement, Miss Carter. So, I suppose I shall have to trust it.”

Peggy smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Jarvis.”

\-----

It didn’t end there, of course. Howard cornered her the next week, in an empty corridor. “Jarvis tells me you’ve been carrying on with a fellow who looks just like Rogers.”

Peggy’s lips twitched, despite herself. “One thing I’ve always liked about you, Howard, is you never beat around the bush.”

“Never saw the point.” He grinned at her, then considered her appraisingly. “I’ve gotta say, Peg, you look a hell of a lot happier than the last time I saw you. You’re almost glowing.” His eyes widened. “Shit. Tell me you’re not - ”

She glared at him, eyebrows raised. “Tell you I’m not what?”

His eyes darted furtively to her midsection. “You know, on second thought, forget it.” 

“I can assure you with absolute confidence that I’m not expecting, Howard,” said Peggy, with a sigh, wondering why he’d absolutely had to do this on a day when she wanted nothing more than to be at home curled up with a hot water bottle.

Howard looked relieved. “Okay, look, Peg,” he said, seriously. “I get it. I miss him too. And I don’t blame you for finding some look-alike call boy or what-have-you, but - ”

“Oh, Good Lord,” said Peggy, eyes wide. “Howard, stop talking right now.”

“Look, I’m not saying I’ve never - ”

Peggy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Howard. Do you honestly think that is what I’m doing?”

Howard frowned. “Yes?”

“Right,” said Peggy, and pushed past him. “I - I need some fresh air.”

“You sure you’re not knocked up, Peg?” he called after her, into the thankfully empty corridor.

\-----

She hadn’t seen Steve laugh so hard in years. Certainly not since before Barnes fell from the train. Possibly not ever. But then, she’d never known him at a time like this, when the war was over and his immediate prospects included art school, marriage, and maybe a little house in the country, close enough for Peggy to commute.

“I’m sorry,” he said, gasping. “But - Howard seriously thinks you’re sleeping with some kind of escort you hired because he looks just like me?”

Peggy sighed. “After he got over insinuating that I was pregnant. I nearly smothered him with a Kotex.”

Steve was wiping actual tears from his cheeks. “Well, at least he said you were glowing. That’s a compliment.”

She sighed again. “I suppose, if you’re a fan of nitramene.” She stood up and began to pace. “Mr. Jarvis strongly suspects you’re a foreign agent sent to entrap me, and Angie thinks I’ve got an unhealthy fixation on you because you resemble Captain America.”

“I’ve been told the likeness is quite uncanny,” said Steve, with a valiant attempt at a straight face.

Peggy sat back down on the couch and buried her face in her hands. “Bloody Nora, Steve. This isn’t going to work.”

She felt him move closer to her and rub a warm hand over her back, squeezing her shoulder. “It’s kind of working.”

“Yes,” she said, “but the idea was to keep a low profile. Now all we’re doing is feeding the rumour mill and drawing unwanted attention.”

“You’re right,” he said, thoughtfully, but with dawning excitement. “Maybe we’re doing this the wrong way.”

She let out a shaky laugh. “What do you suggest? We have terribly nosy friends.”

Steve kissed the back of her ear, and she sighed. “I don’t like lying to them either,” he said. “But - they’re nosy because they care about you. And about me - the real me, not Grant. I think we can trust them. In fact, I think telling them might be the only way we can keep this a secret.”

Peggy blinked, sitting up straight and staring at him. “Good Lord. You’re right.”

\-----

“Okay,” said Howard, slowly. “So, what you’re telling me is that time travel is possible, and that Steve Rogers is currently both here in your living room and lying frozen in the Arctic somewhere with the wreckage of the Valkyrie.”

Steve nodded. “I can’t tell you how or where, Howard, no matter how often you ask, but yes.”

Jarvis opened his mouth, and Peggy cleared her throat. “I appreciate your concern, Mr. Jarvis, but I do not have the slightest doubt that he’s actually Steve. There are - a great many things that happened between the two of us during the war that an impostor couldn’t possibly know.”

Jarvis nodded, and Howard raised his eyebrows and shot them a knowing grin. “Okay,” he said, and Peggy could already see him beginning to make calculations. 

“No,” she said, firmly. “No, Howard, you do not get to mess with the timeline. The Ancient - er - the authority who advised Steve to stay here was quite clear that she was doing so in order to fulfill a closed loop. Nobody can know who he is.”

“When I was in the future I couldn’t find any information about Peggy’s husband, other than that he existed,” said Steve. “We need to keep it that way.”

Angie looked between the two of them, an enormous grin spreading on her face. “Her husband, huh?”

Peggy, unaccountably, found herself blushing. “Well - ”

“If she’ll have me, of course,” said Steve. "And it doesn't have to be right away. Or ever, if you don't want - "

“Of course I’ll have you,” said Peggy, and she leaned up and kissed him thoroughly, then pulled back with a grin. “You look just like Captain America.”


End file.
